Watering Those Seeds For Daily Spiritual Maintenance

Every day most people run through some type of routine maintenance in their lives. From the time one awakes to the time one goes to bed, a person goes through a gambit of things that might include waking up and stretching, showering, shaving, having coffee, heading to work, covering their responsibilities once there, having something to eat during the work day, going home, relaxing, watching television, eating dinner, reading something on the Internet, brushing their teeth, reading a little bit in bed, and eventually going to sleep. Of course, all of that would vary from person to person, depending on the day of the week and various other factors, but more than not, once that routine is established, it’s rarely changed. Unfortunately, there is a part of that routine maintenance though that many people irregularly do or never do at all and that’s a daily spiritual maintenance.

First off, let me explain what I mean by a daily spiritual maintenance by telling you what mine is. In my case, there are seven activities that I do each and every day to keep a solid foundation for my spirituality. In the morning, I always begin with some type of prayer on my knees, or if my pain is high, sitting somewhere with my head bowed. Next I move onto doing some type of silent meditation for at least thirty minutes. After that, I have a twenty minute audio attunement from one of my spiritual teachers that I listen to and repeat aloud alongside her voice. During some part of my day, I’ll take at least thirty minutes to recite a list of 29 positive mantras I created and will say them twelve time each. At another point in my day, I will sit at this computer for at least an hour or two and write another one of my daily spiritual entries for this blog. As I prepare for bed in the evening, I’ll write in a journal at least nine things that I’m grateful to God for from that day. When my day officially comes to an end, the last thing I do before I fall asleep is to pray as I did in the morning. And day after day, week after week, month after month, and now for almost a year, I have been completing this daily spiritual maintenance regardless of how I feel.

I’m sure there are some people who are going to think that my daily spiritual maintenance is rather extreme. But for a guy like me who lived in so many addictions throughout my life, where each contained their own toxic activities that I never missed a beat on any given day, doing all of these spiritual activities has become crucial to continue growing closer to my Higher Power. I’m convinced that it’s much easier to do the other daily activities of life such as showering, eating, going to work, etc, because all of them are required on some level to function and many of them even have an immediate payoff from doing them. So when one takes a shower, one usually feels better afterwards. When one eats some food, one usually feels better afterwards then too. And when one works at a job, one also get a paycheck that makes them feel better as well. But in the case of a daily spiritual maintenance, none of those activities appear to be necessary to function day to day, and often there is no immediate payoff from doing any of them. So for most people, the only time those activities seem to become necessary is when they hit a rough patch in life, and when the pain gets great enough. That’s when a daily spiritual maintenance is usually created and followed every day. That is until those rough patches begin to smooth out and the pain starts disappearing. And sadly, that’s when some of those daily spiritual activities begin to be skipped here and there until eventually, they are skipped altogether with excuses that there’s not enough time in the day to do them. I am telling you this because that is what I did for most of my life with any type of daily spiritual maintenance I tried to create. But thankfully, that’s not the case for me anymore.

Today, I do all of my daily spiritual activities regardless of how I feel on any given day. So whether I feel terrible or great, I consistently follow the same spiritual routine, even on those days, when my brain tries to tell me it’s ok to skip some of them. And what I have noticed from doing all of this every day now for almost 12 months is that even though I don’t normally get any immediate payoff from doing it, I have grown immensely on a spiritual level and am starting to see the long term benefits. A strong metaphor to something this compares to in life is when one plants a seed in a garden and then waters it every day. For awhile, they may wonder if anything is going to happen, but then one day, a little sprout pops out of the ground. If they stops watering that seed, there’s a good chance it will whither away and die. But if they continue to water, it sprouts a little more each day, until that moment comes when a beautiful blossom springs forth. I believe I am that seed and am watching myself grow now as I water myself every single day with my daily spiritual maintenance. And the best part about this is that I’m not sure if I’ve even blossomed yet.

So if you want to see your own life grow spiritually, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and ask yourself if you’ve been watering yourself every single day with any type of daily spiritual maintenance. If you haven’t, that might explain a lot of the unhappiness you’ll experience with life by not doing so. But if you have, know that all your watering is not in vain, as you too will soon begin to sprout into a beautiful blossom…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson